Windsor Mill Road Covered Bridge

COUNTY

WORLD GUIDE #

CROSSES

TRUSS

SPANS

LENGTH

BUILT

GONE

Baltimore

MD-03-30x

Gwynns Falls

Unk

Unk

Unk

Unk

c1916

The first indication of a covered bridge on Windsor Mill over Gwynns Falls comes from an article in the Baltimore Sun on March 6, 1867 advertising for proposals to build bridges at three locations in the general area of Windsor Mill Road, Wetheredsville Road and Franklin Turnpike. The second bridge mentioned in the ad is the Windsor Mill Bridge:

The second bridge is located over Gwynn's Falls at the intersection of the Windsor Avenue with the Wetheredsville road; span fifty-two feet, width of floor sixteen feet. This is also to be built of white pine and painted or coated with gas tar, with the exception of the floor, which is to be of oak or yellow pine, two-and-a-half inches thick. The masonry will embrace in the two abutments, to be solid masonry cemented, seven feet in height, and with the wing-walls about fifty perches in all.

The frame work of all of the above bridges to be secured by a two-inch rod, built in the masonry of the abutments and connected with the timbers of the structure.

Persons proposing to build will submit plans and specifications either for covered or weather-boarded or uncovered bridges.

It is likely the bridge at Windsor Mill Road may not have been built before the freshets of August 1867 and July of 1868 for there is no indication of loss or damage to a bridge at this location from newspaper articles related to the floods.

Another indication there was a covered bridge on Windsor Mill Road comes from an aticle in the Baltimore Sun on January 17, 1900:

A BRIDGE DECLARED UNSAFE--Albert Weber, bridge superintendent, reported to the County Commissioners that the culvert on the Windsor Mill road at Powhatan had abutments constructed of dry walls which are about to fall in. He said that the bracesof a wooden bridge on the Windsor Mill road across the Gwynn's falls are badly rotted and that the chord lines are entirely too light for a span of 168 feet. This bridge he does not consider safe for heavy travel.

Regardless of the timing for when the covered bridge over Gwynns Falls on Windsor Mill Road was built, an article in the Baltimore Sun provides some information about the existence of the bridge. On September 9, 1907 an article titled "Another Park Bought" mentions the bridge:

Topographically, the land is admirable for park purposes. It is of rolling character, and from its highest points commanding views can be had of the harbor and bay as far as Fort Carroll and Sparrows Point. The estate is known as Coudrat. An old millrace still encircles the property. It begins at Morris Avenue and Twelfth Street and winds through the land as far as the covered bridge at Windsor Mill road, where it empties into Gwynn's falls.

According to the Sun the wooden bridge was replaced around 1916.

We are still researching this location to positively identify this bridge as a wooden covered one. Indications point to it being such, but more conclusive information is always desired. The length of the bridge is also confusing for the 1867 proposal calls for a bridge of 52 feet, yet the latter article about the bridge inspection says it is 168 feet.